Ethnic Attitudes Developmental Essay.

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Ethnic Attitudes Developmental Essay

Ethnic attitudes can be defined as the thoughts and feelings expressed by individuals in response to ethnicity. Ethnicity includes ‘group patterns of values, social customs, perceptions, behavioural roles, language usage, and rules of social interactions that group members share’ (Barth, 1969; Ogbu 1981). Therefore ethnic attitudes reflect the feelings about one’s own and other ethnic groups. Research has mainly been conducted in western society, and has focused on the developmental or social psychological factors contributing to the existence of positive or negative ethnic attitudes. Negative attitudes include prejudice. Prejudice has been defined as ‘an organised predisposition to respond in a particular way to individuals on the basis of their own individual characteristics’ (Aboud 1988). Research has found that children display ethnic attitudes, in particular prejudice from an early age. This essay will examine the development of ethnic attitudes during childhood from different theoretical and methodological perspectives.

It has been suggested that developmental changes in ethnic attitudes towards other groups be related to the growth of cognitive skills (Katz, 1976 ).  Cognitive developmental psychologists argue the process, which dominates a child’s functioning at a particular age, will also determine his/her attitudes. Aboud’s (1988) theory on the development of ethnic attitudes stems from a piagetian perspective. Piaget’s (1928) theory of cognitive development proposed those children’s understanding of social experience develop parallel to their understanding of the physical world.

Aboud’s (1988) theory reflects the ideas put forward by Piaget (1932). She

 proposes two overlapping processes determine the child’s ethnic attitudes. The first relates to a change in the process that dominates the child’s functioning-from affective and perceptual processes to cognitive processes. The second relates to the shift from self, to group to individual focus. Aboud’s (1988) theory explains how in the early years (up to 5 years of age) affective processes such as emotions and needs determine children’s attitudes towards own and other ethnic groups. Then the perception of one’s own and others’ appearance and behaviour influence ethnic attitudes. Finally after the age of seven or eight cognitive processes, such as the knowledge that ethnic groups do not only have concrete but also psychological attributes influence the child’s ethnic attitudes. Cognitive developmental psychologists argue that cognitive understanding influences the way the child interpretates his/her experiences, consequently this leads to the formation of their attitudes towards other groups. From this perspective cognition is necessary for the development of ethnic attitudes.

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Research has shown that white children as young as 3 years old display negative attitudes towards blacks. Asher and Allen (1969) conducted a study using a doll technique originally devised by Clark and Clark (1947). They presented children with a white puppet and black puppet. A series of questions regarding which puppet the child preferred were then asked by an examiner of the same race as the child.  The questions were as follows: ‘which puppet is the nice puppet? Which puppet would you like to play with?  Which puppet looks bad? Which puppet is the nice colour? Only 20% ...

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